Capt. Dave's Ocean Report

As seen weekly in the Dana Point News/Orange County Register

September 1, 2005

The big news this week is that Frank Brennan of Dana Wharf Sportfishing spotted what he believed was a rare megamouth shark a half-mile south of Dana Point harbor in thirty feet of water on Saturday. See photo taken by Frank.

These sharks are so rare we can actually count the number of confirmed sightings, (33 according to the Florida Natural History Museum). See chart map. If confirmed, this sighting should make the news world wide as it is only the 34th confirmed sighting of a megamouth shark in the world. Megamouth sharks, Megachasma pelagios, feed almost exclusively on krill - a tiny shrimp like crustacean that blue whales also eat. Dana Point has already had several confirmed sightings of this odd looking shark. Frank believed the shark to be about 12-14 feet long and weighed about 1,000 pounds –that’s a big shark. These megamouths are very distinctive looking and hard to mistake for anything else except possibly a basking shark. But identifying this fish is much easier if you get a good look like Frank and the twenty-one other fisherman aboard Reel Fun did. The photos are now being evaluated by experts. Great sighting Frank, wish I’d seen it.

Well we are still seeing blue whales, not on every trip but on several Safaris this week. Most of the blue’s we saw were passing through rather than feeding.

On Saturday we saw rissos dolphins on the first trip, went back out on the next one to look for them and found a few hundred common dolphin instead. Then we went out on our third trip and found a blue whale. On our last Safari of the day I found myself photographing a common dolphin hanging in the air with the sun going down in the background, standing just to my left with a camera up to his eye was the famous artist Wyland. Maybe he will paint that scene it was quite beautiful and unforgettable.

Till next week. God bless. This is Capt. Dave, over and out.

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